Wednesday, February 6, 2008

A Grammar Lesson: Him and I

This is one of my very biggest pet peeves. I see and hear it everywhere!

"They were so sweet, they threw a going-away party for John and I before we left."

"My parents gave Rachael and I a gift card for our anniversary!"

Or perhaps the most rampant of them all... Facebook albums titled "Pictures of Mary and I."

I know, I know. We all grew up running to our moms saying, "Mom! Can me and Amy go to the park?" Only to be firmly corrected, "AMY AND I." And that is completely correct in that instance. It's also correct that the other person's name should always come first, whether you use me or I. But now we're all scared to ever use "me" in a sentence. Well, I'm here to liberate you from that prison. There is a very easy little rule that can help you know whether to say "Amy and I" or "Amy and me."

Take the other person's name out of the sentence and see what makes sense.

"My parents gave I a gift card for our anniversary!" No, no, no.

"Pictures of I." *shivers* Definitely wrong.

"They are having buy one get one free coffee at Heine Bros and I am going to go." Yes. In this sentence, "Josh and I" would be appropriate (not just grammatically but also because Josh and I looooove Heine Bros' coffee :) ).

So there you have it. Now you, too, can speak intelligently. Have a great day!

3 comments:

Yes! I wholeheartedly share your frustration! As a professional communicator, nothing rubs me the wrong way quite as much. I take that back. I'd love to see another grammar lesson on sentence fragments and punctuation. :)

What is particularly irritating to me about "with Tom and I" is that it is educated people doing it. And, they do it ALL the time. I work for IBM. All the managers and executives say it all the time. And, on TV, you rarely hear it used correctly. I fear the objective pronoun in a compound object will fall out of use.